From the Very Beginning ....to the Troubled Times to come Before the Deluge...

l

Sunday, 13 August 2017

North Korea

North Korea: Fire, Fury And Fear

By Pepe Escobar

Beware the dogs of war. The same intel “folks” who brought
to you babies pulled from incubators by “evil” Iraqis as well as non-existent
WMDs are now peddling the notion that North Korea has produced a miniaturized
nuclear warhead able to fit its recently tested ICBM.

That’s the core of an analysis completed in July by the
Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA). Additionally, US intel believes that
Pyongyang now has access to up to 60 nuclear weapons. On the ground US intel on
North Korea is virtually non-existent – so these assessments amount to
guesswork at best.

But when we couple the guesswork with an annual 500-page
white paper released earlier this week by the Japanese Defense Ministry, alarm
bells do start ringing.

The white paper stresses Pyongyang’s “significant headway”
in the nuclear race and its “possible” ability to develop miniaturized nuclear
warheads able to fit on the tips of its missiles.

This “possible” ability is drowned in outright speculation.
As the report states, “It is conceivable that North Korea’s nuclear weapons
program has already considerably advanced and it is possible that North Korea
has already achieved the miniaturization of nuclear bombs into warheads and has
acquired nuclear warheads.”

The Japanese white paper, conveniently, also escalated
condemnation of China over Beijing’s actions in both the East and South China
seas.

So let’s look at the agendas in play. The War Party in the
US, with its myriad connections in the industrial-military-media complex,
obviously wants/needs war to keep the machinery oiled. Tokyo, for its part,
would much appreciate a pre-emptive US military attack – and damn the
inevitable, massive South Korean casualties that would result from Pyongyang’s
counterpunch.

It’s quite enlightening that Tokyo, for all practical
purposes, considers China as a “threat” as serious as North Korea; Defense
Minister Itsunori Onodera went straight to the point when he said, “North
Korea’s missiles represent a deepening threat. That, along with China’s
continued threatening behavior in the East China Sea and South China Sea, is a
major concern for Japan.” Beijing’s response was swift.

Kim Jong-Un, demonized ad infinitum, is not a fool, and is
not going to indulge in a ritual seppuku unilaterally attacking South Korea,
Japan or US territory. Pyongyang’s nuclear arsenal represents the deterrent
against regime change that Saddam Hussein and Gaddafi could not count on.
There’s only one way to deal with North Korea, as I’ve argued before;
diplomacy. Tell that to Washington and Tokyo.

Meanwhile, there’s United Nations Security Council
Resolution 2371. It does target North Korea’s major exports – coal, iron,
seafood. Coal accounts for 40% of Pyongyang’s exports, and arguably 10% of GDP.

Yet this new sanctions package does not touch imports of oil
and refined-oil products from China. That’s one of the reasons why Beijing
voted in favor.

Beijing’s strategy is a very Asian attempt to find a
face-saving solution – and that takes time. UNSC resolution 2371 buys time –
and may dissuade the Trump administration, for now, from going heavy metal,
with horrible consequences.

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi cautiously stated the
sanctions are a sign of international opposition to North Korea’s missile and
nuclear weapons programs. The last thing Beijing needs is a war right on its
borders, also bound to negatively interfere with the expansion of the New Silk
Roads, a.k.a. Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).

Beijing could always work on re-building trust between
Pyongyang and Washington. That’s an order taller than the Himalayas. One just
needs to look back at the 1994 Agreed Framework, signed during Bill Clinton’s
first term.

The framework was supposed to freeze – and even dismantle –
Pyongyang’s nuclear program and was bound to normalize US-North Korea
relations. A US-led consortium would build two light-water nuclear reactors to
compensate for Pyongyang’s loss of nuclear power; sanctions would be lifted;
both parties would issue “formal assurances” against the use of nuclear
weapons.

Nothing happened. The framework collapsed in 2002 – when
North Korea was enshrined in the “axis of evil” by the Cheney regime. Not to
mention that the Korean War is still, technically, on; the 1953 armistice was
never replaced by a real peace treaty.

So what next? Three reminders.

1) Beware of an engineered false flag, to be blamed on
Pyongyang; that would be the perfect pretext for war.

2) The current narrative is eerily similar to the usual
suspects blaring since forever that Iran is a heartbeat away from “building a
nuclear weapon”.

3) North Korea holds trillions of US dollars in unexplored
mineral wealth. Watch the shadowplay by candidates bound to profit from such
juicy loot.

about me

A new counter-culture is now spreading across the planet, a movement dedicated to protesting at the outlandish behaviour of the control freaks, with their surveillance, eavesdropping, secrecy and lies. Their greed and belligerent sabre rattling and their industries of war. The dream is to replace these sociopaths with Love!

I wish this blog to be a small part of this - We must be the change.

We will be set to task to rebuild our world and our planet from centuries of decimation and destruction brought on by the fallacy, the belief that we once tragically and collectively embraced thousands of years ago – the mistaken notion that we are separate from one another and everything else on the planet and in the universe. We will finally recognize that the truth is just the opposite – we are all one with everything on the planet and in the universe. We are spiritual beings, infinite consciousness simply having a human experience, and as soon we come to fully recognize and understand this, it will then finally be time for us to fly – to shine in all of our infinite, glorious possibility...